WHAT THEY ARE SAYING: Americans Urge Elected Officials To Protect What Is Working, Reject One-Size-Fits-All Health Care
As the U.S. House Committee on Rules prepares to hold a hearing on the costly, disruptive one-size-fits-all health care bill known as Medicare for all, voices throughout the nation are encouraging elected officials to come together to protect what is working and fix what is broken in America’s health care system, while opposing a one-size-fits-all government-run approach that will force Americans to pay more.
Anthony O’Brien, Professor, Pennsylvania:
Medicare for All is not actually an expansion of traditional Medicare, but is instead an entirely new system that would give the federal government an almost complete monopoly on paying for health care, with private companies relegated to selling supplemental plans …
[P]rivate health insurance companies would likely go out of business. No other country in the world bans private health insurance. Not Canada, not England, not Sweden. Nobody …
Currently, the federal government spends about $4.5 trillion per year on all programs – Social Security, aircraft carriers, mowing the White House lawn, and everything else. Medicare for All would require spending increases like nothing we’ve seen since World War II. We could pay for it only by a massive tax increase on the middle class. Sorry, but there just aren’t enough rich people to foot the bill.
Finally, the price controls Medicare for All would impose on pharmaceutical firms, hospitals, doctors, and medical device manufacturers would slow, if not end, progress in improving medical screening equipment, surgical procedures and prescription drugs. Those are areas in which the U.S. is currently the world leader.
[O]ur Representatives seem to know that most Arizonans want common-sense solutions instead of partisan rhetoric. That is why I was encouraged that Democrat candidate Mark Kelly joined Senator Sinema in opposing the Medicare for all push. They know that kicking millions of Arizonans off their health insurance will create a bigger mess than what we have now, and that the answer to our health care problems comes in bringing down costs and getting more folks covered. I know that Rep. Kirkpatrick once had that position as well, but has since joined the Medicare for all crowd. I hope that she will reconsider, because being a common-sense moderate on this particular issue is the only way we’ll get real problems fixed.
Michael Jordan, Former Democratic Committeeman and LGTBQ Community Advocate, Arizona:
I find it amusing that everyone seems to be enthusiastic about this new Medicare for all or Medicare buy-in push.
Though we can thank our lucky stars that our moderate Democrats like Senator Sinema and Congressman Stanton aren’t part of this push, it’s funny that the Democrats on the national stage would want to put our health care system in the government’s hands.
Have these proponents of Medicare for all forgotten how mismanaged our government can be? … Do we really want the red tape, bureaucratic nightmare that is our government to be applied to our health care system? No thank you.
Jim Skaine, Former Democratic Congressional Candidate, Iowa:
Medicare for all cannot do what the ACA does. The government cannot pay for the entire cost of the health care. Government programs are vulnerable to budget cuts which is the way that social programs have been attacked over the years. They are vulnerable to reductions in what is covered.
Akhil Mulgaonker, Tucson Democratic State Committeeman, Arizona:
While many of our leaders are pointing fingers and grandstanding on the important issues, it’s good to see that we have leaders putting aside party politics to make Arizonans lives better. One example is … Sen. Kyrsten Sinema avoiding the unrealistic Medicare for all plan and working across the aisle on ideas to improve the health care we have instead of the one that is an unrealistic dream.
As long as there is a divided, partisan, and dysfunctional Congress, we will need leaders to work with each other in the state to make things better.
Free Medicare for all. Bernie Sanders has let the secret out at a recent town hall meeting. Your monthly healthcare premiums, deductibles, and co-pays would be replaced with a tax increase. A further reduction in our take home pay every pay period. Free is not so free after all.